Knowles wins second term

TAMAQUA - State Rep. Jerry Knowles easily won his second term as representative for 124th Legislative District, and with the win will now resume his efforts to abolish school property taxes in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

Knowles, who ran against Independent candidate Dante Picciano, celebrated his victory Tuesday evening at The Restaurant at The Station in Tamaqua with his family, friends and supporters. Joining Knowles was his former boss, state Sen. David G. Argall, R-29, who won his re-election against Democrat challenger Tim Seip. There was no Democrat challenger.

As of 10:45 p.m., Knowles has 15,943 votes to Picciano's 4,584.

A former Schuylkill County commissioner and Tamaqua mayor and councilman, Knowles, 64, of Tamaqua, worked for Argall when he represented the 124th District, and when Argall took over the Senate seat held by the late James J. Rhoades, Knowles was chosen in a special election in 2009 to fill the vacancy left by Argall. Knowles was re-elected in 2010 for a full two-year term.

Knowles would also like to see the commonwealth end its operation of the state liquor store system by privatizing the stores. He states that the privatization would allow $200 million per year to be used for transportation, particularly road and bridge maintenance and repair.

Picciano, 68, a West Penn Township resident who is a retired patent attorney, holds a Ph.D. degree in genetics from George Washington University, completed post-doctoral training in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, England, and is licensed to practice law in all 50 states. He announced his candidacy in early October for the seat in order to give legislative district voters a choice on the ballot.

School property taxes were also an important issue that Picciano ran on, but he had a different take on how the system could be fixed to give homeowners a break rather than abolish school property taxes in their entirety.

The 124th District is located in portions of Schuylkill and Berks counties. District municipalities in Schuylkill County are the townships of East Brunswick, East Union, Kline, North Union, Rush, Schuylkill, Union, Walker, West Brunswick and West Penn, and the boroughs of Coaldale, Deer Lake, McAdoo, New Ringgold, Orwigsburg, Port Clinton, Ringtown and Tamaqua.

jusalis@republicanherald.com

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